Ska Travel Services is the new business that has replaced the Nicki Fiander flower shop (priced out by their landlords) in Brockley Cross. It appears to be in the final stages of preparation prior to opening and there are clear signs of life behind the shutters - unlike many of the "businesses" in that area - so good luck to them.

The travel agency specialises in journeys to Africa, the Caribbean and the US and was formerly based in the Brockley Cross Business Centre, so its opening still represents a net gain of -1 for local busineses operating in SE4.

A 308 Winchester and a few bottles of Evian to combat the risk of cholera infection would be perfect.

On the subject of Brockley Cross Business Centre, I am not aware of any closure but maybe the businesses there are taking advantage of the available shop space to boost trade. Solicitors particularly will benefit from a high street presence.

A human to talk to and ask advice of...?And they don't just sell package holidays. Way back pre-internet days I had a normal high street travel agent arrange me a three centre trip around America and he said he really enjoyed it - something to get his teeth into with a bespoke service rather than just an off-the-peg pre-packaged tour.Now, alas, you are probably right and I would be cobbling the thing together myself with the internet. But it was nice arranging and discussing with him. (Thinking about it now, I should have sent them a post-card from Yellowstone Park, but I was possibly too young then to think of such courtesies.)

Why do most of the shops in Brockley and Ladywell insist on having those ugly metal shutters anyway. They make the area look run down and they encourage grafitti. The shops that do not have shutters are not getting their windows smashed. If you want commercial premises to work then a good start is to remove the shutters-that's what has happened in other areas that have 'come up'.

This is exactly why I'd like to see the council put some funding into a shopfront improvement programme in Brockley. I can understand that the economics for each individual shopkeeper don't make sense, but collectively and with some kind of co-ordination and support, it is definitely possible and could make a real difference.

Unfortunately, because of the 'one off' and relatively small nature of the funding streams that seem to be available, it would require some political leadership to deliver, I think. And that's something which Brockley doesn't get - no offence to our councillors, who do a sterling job, but Mayor Steve frankly doesn't give a shit for their views, does he?

That's a bit like saying that you could probably leave your door unlocked for the next year and not get burgled. And you'd be right - but I'm sure the metal shutters give them that little bit more piece of mind that lets you know that if a window is going to get smashed, at least it's not one of yours.

Does anyone here think Brockley will really change in the next 20 years, or longer? London neighbourhoods take far longer to transform and it isn't a question of local council activity. It's a matter of whether salaried professionals move in in droves. If that doesn't happen, it's as you were.

I lived in Peckham for a few months a (good) while back. I found it to be a dynamic, multi-cultural place full of interest and with a local populace that straddled all classes and cultures. There was even an Oscar winner over the road from my temporary accommodation.

It could well be the insurance companies that are insisting on those ghastly shutters. They don't give a toss about what an area looks like - consider their pressures for the decimation of pavement trees - but are keen to avoid paying out any claims.So the problem needs to be dealt with at a really high-up political level and must be last but one on anyone's priority list.

The key reason for demand for small travel agents like the new Ska is payment options. If you use the internet to book travel, you have to have a credit card or bank account with a credit card facility. Many people in the UK don't have either, particularly foreigners who are either fairly new to living here and haven't built up a financial profile which would qualify for credit facilities, or who don't have a high enough or regular salary to get a credit card. Travel agencies accept cash and other forms of payment and thus are a necessity for people who need to pay in that way. Quite simple, really. The "talk to the friendly travel agent" is normally a side issue.

The shutters are not attractive but they don't bother me. My dad was a shop manager and at least once every year he was called out in the middle of the night because somebody had smashed the plate glass window. He was the keyholder and had to wait till the police had finished and somebody had boarded the window up. I bet he'd have been delighted to have security shutters that prevented that nuisance.

1. hugh, if I had said those comments it would of been deleted by now for citing 'racial hatred' or something else nick dreams up.

2. Sian, the banks have been very willing to give out bank accounts/credit facilities in the recent past thats why we are in this mess. The real reason why people prefer to deal in cash is that there is no audit trail, no taxes to pay and carte blanc to send all those lovely british pounds overseas, outwidth of the uk economy.

Cat Man, it's true that those who have been able to get credit have often been able to get lots of it in recent years. However Treasury figures show that the number of adults in households without access to a transactional bank account changed from 2.9m in 2005/06 to 3.0m in 2006/07. Treasury and Bank of England, as well as other peer-reviewed and quantifiable research shows that recent immigrants, the long-term unemployed, those with short-term residence contracts or those in social housing, as well as those who have no savings, are often financially excluded in ways such as having no access to a bank account. It is often impossible for such "unbanked" to get access to a credit card that can be used online (which was the key point I was making in resposne to the question as to why people would prefer to use a small travel agent rather than book online). This is an area I am currently researching for my PhD so my statement was based on solid academic research rather than an anecdotal or personal view. Do you have any reliable and publicly scrutinised data to back up your views?

Honestly don't encourage him. We all know his tortured logic is just masking a profound hatred of foreigners (especially them blacks allegedly 'going on holiday' while actually stealing our money and sleeping with our women so diluting our proud Aryan blood...blah, blah, blah....)

You work for one of the big accountancy firms, do they not help clients transfer money around while remaining (ahem) tax efficient? PwC helped me when I transfered money from Australia to the UK. Do you really think little enterprises like these are the biggest offenders? Rich business types in the city do it daily ( I would guess that they are lilly white too)

Hugh etc - Brockley already has changed, as has New Cross and Peckham. There are some very gentrified spots of Peckham if you know where to look. Enormous Victorian villas beautifully maintained on a par with parts of Highgate. Who knows whether Brockley will ever rival Islington or west London but I believe it can only get better.

Cat Man - It's very hard for non EU nationals to get credit cards or even bank accounts in the UK. A Japanese friend of mine had huge difficulties opening a bank account here back in 2000. He simply wanted somewhere to deposit several thousand pounds to live on, but UK banks would not take his money, let alone issue a credit or debit card. I tried to help, even tried to offer to "guarantee" him as I was (WAS - I left them following this) a long term client of Barclays but, at the end of the day, computer said no. He had no credit history here...

It's us "true blue" Brits which have consumed enormous wuantities of cheap credit, not "foreigners".

I'm surprised you know where all the big houses are in Peckham - it obviously means you have a comprehensive knowledge of the area, some of them are quite tricky to find (and not all big). The < estate agent speak > sought-after Choumerts < /estate agent speak > have been gentrified for some considerable time.

Hugh - Neither does it mean that the whole of Peckham (or Forest Hill, or Brockley for that matter) are overrun with dealers with everything drowned out by police sirens. Do you seriously believe that Brockley has gone as far as it ever will? What's your basis for this?

20 years ago, Upper Street was like any other high street, now it's a thriving pot of independent shops, cafes and restaurants and parts like Canonbury have some lovely houses. At the same time, Islington has huge concentrations of social housing, but when people think of Islington they don't think of dealers and police sirens. Even though when I lived off Upper Street I heard far more sirens than I ever do in SE London. I think you're just pandering to "Daily Mail", superficial perceptions.

"if I had said those comments it would of been deleted by now for citing 'racial hatred' or something else nick dreams up."

"Would HAVE been" (conditional past perfect, if my memory serves me correctly) and "inciting"; "citing" means something completely different. And "Nick" should have a capital letter, as it's a proper noun. For someone who claims to be so worried about English identity, you really can mangle our language.

And also, it's "carte BLANCHE", as "carte" is feminine. But I'll let you off that one, as it's a nasty foreign language.

Headhunter, by 'closed' I mean the type that hides all the goods (and light) inside the shop.

In Kilburn, following regeneration funding, and strict planning rules, many shopkeepers' received funding to replace the old metal (closed) shutters for grills - and it improved the area enormously.

A lot of shops now leave their window lights on, advertising their wares, and this adds to increased security for the shop and for the community.

The closed shutters are presumably covered by planning at Lewisham, and are probably not allowed in their present form. KJ Bbuilders, which has now moved closer to Brockley at the top of Loampit Vale, was not allowed to have closed shutters.

Headhunter, you can't point to Islington as proof that Brockley will change. The two are very different, and were 20 years ago.

As for whether I think Brockley will change, frankly I don't. This area of London has too high a proportion of low-income and council tenant inhabitants for real change ever to come. It will stay as a staging post, nevertheless, for young professionals and a smallish number of middle class families whose need for floor space prices them out of better known areas.

This isn't dissing Brockley - it's just stating what I think it obvious.

Certainly you're entitled to your view and I have no idea whether in 20 years Brockers will have moved on much, but I think it has the potential to do so.

I am not using Islington as proof, just as an example. Brockley and Islington are different but not that different. Granted Islington is closer to central London than Brockley but Islington also had and continues to have a huge proportion of low-income and council tenant inhabitants which hasn't held it back at all.

Islington has pockets of wealth and pockets of deprivation and there is surely potential for the same thing to occur in Brockley. the conservation area for example is similar to spots like Canonbury with its large Victorian housing stock.

Go back 20-30 years and these buildings in Islington were also the home to people living below the poverty line. Notting Hill was the same.

I tend to agree. I have seen people get excited by Brockley during previous economic cycles.

It has some nice houses, but it remains, for the most part, a dormitory for city workers. A number of the larger houses are used for refuges, hostels and half way houses of one kind or another. And then there are the students.

These groups, rich or poor, represent a significant proportion of the Brockley population that are transitory. They stay a few years and then move on, making their home elsewhere. There is little to keep them. The level of social cohesion is limited, the area has few places where it comes together. Local facilities are few and lack lustre.

I suspect the reason is that the local economy does not benefit from a recognisable 'high street'. It has a few isolated parades of shops, most of which have been decimated by the large supermarkets that draw of large numbers of car owning residents to spend outside the area.

For entertainment, people go into central London or into Greenwich.

Brockley, just does not have the ingedients. Nor is there any development plan from the Lewisham council, which seems so concentrate on redesigning Lewisham town centre again and encouraging artists to set up shop in Deptford and maybe turn it into the Brick Lane of south London.

There have always been plenty of salaried professionals living in Brockley, but there are few places for them to spend their salary.

However...this might change. If all the business ant hills in the City start closing down. Then maybe new companies will employ more homeworkers. After all, it is quite possible to do most of what you can do in an office at home, these days.

If there was a major shift in the economy of the workplace like that, then Brockleys' fortunes might might change.

If living in Brockley means I still have a bit more of a salary to spend somewhere else (where it would otherwise go on rent and keeping myself barely alive) - then viva Brockley. We're all Londoners, anyway, and if it means we get to live somewhere cheap that still looks nice then that really is a bonus and we shouldn't see a short train ride as an obstacle.

These are mostly 'desirable' facilities. Even if Dandelion Blue closes there is most certainly an upwards trend around the station.

Additionally, the flower shop closing and the travel shop opening up - it was due to rent increases by the landlord.

Commercial property values are therefore increasing as well as residential.

The only way is up and you can see it already. People are reluctant to put their house on the market as prices have not decreased that much around the station and I have personally seen a large increase in well-dressed individuals living/using Brockley station since being here.

This trend will only continue. External property investment companies have penciled in Brockley for 'moderate' growth above and beyond the London average from 2010 onwards.

"Does anyone here think Brockley will really change in the next 20 years, or longer?"

No, can't say I'm too bothered either - just don't want it to change for the worse.

Brockley's never going to be an important spot on the map. Best you can hope for is that it'll be a reasonable sort of place with crime, vandalism, litter and general griminess kept under control.

Also, a recession is starting which could drag on for years, part of a big readjustment in the world economy. Most of the growth in trendy 'value-added' shops and cafes occurred during a consumer boom. That now belongs to another age.

Yes, Brockley does have an element of "dormitory workers", however so does Islington, Notting Hill etc.

In fact I'd be willing to gamble that Islington and Notting Hill have far more young, single City/advertising etc workers than Brockley has. In both these areas there are also a large percentage of workers over here from the US or Germany perhaps at the "London office" of their employer for 2 or 3 years before they head home. The population in these places is far more transient.

I would bet that there is far more social cohesion here than in either Islington or Notting Hill. In fact there are posters on this website who have lived in teh area for 20 years. In any case, social cohesion does not bring money or affluence, neither does it necessarily reject it. Do you think "social cohesion" ranks high on young City bankers' checklists when they choose to live in Notting Hill? I doubt it.

You are right that Brockley lacks a centre though and a cohesive destination of little shops and cafes etc which would attract money and gentrify the area (if that's what we are aiming for).

As for Lewisham council and its development plans. Do you think Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (for Notting Hill) had a development plan to turn those areas into what they are today? I doubt it. I think it was merely down to factors like closeness to work, and attractiveness of the areas which started the ball rolling in bringing in money and gentrifying. Brockley is 2 stops from London Bridge so v close to the City and also close to Canary Wharf. The large houses of the conservation area as well as the small, manageable sized houses outside are not exactly unattractive.

You say that if the City starts closing down, Brockley's star will rise. I believe exactly the opposite. If people work from home as you suggest, why should they choose to do it in Brockley? Why not from a leafy village in Kent? The City is the key to Brockley's gentrification (again, if that's the aim).

All in all the ingredients are defuinitely in place, however the cake may take 20 years to bake...

if Brockley is ever going to pull itself 'up' and be perceived as a more desireable place to live, it would have happened by now. We've just experienced one of the biggest booms ever, and areas with no better housing stock or links to the city eg. SE22 have changed beyond recognition and have absorbed the Islington and Clapham diaspora.

Many young pro's move here, thinking they've boldly discovered something that nobody has ever discovered before, and seeing themselves as trend-setters others will surely follow. This delusion lasts about 4 years in my experience, and then most move on. Few settle.

A lot of us were full of hope when the old Brakespears Arms got shut down hoping we were going to get a half decent boozer in the centre of things, only to find out that Brockley was considered only fit for Wetherspoons. Next came Moonbay Jokes, which again filled us with hope, and led a small upsurge of independent businesses. Now that's gone.

Talking to the EA's, the consensus is it'll take around 15 years to appear on the radar of the average Joe and be seen as comfortable and relatively desireable place to move to.

I have to agree with Cartman.The change has already started and the ELL will only lead to more. Brockley is a lovely but still relatively 'undiscovered' area - being on the tube and directly connected to the city and 'happening' Shoreditch will change that.

I know several people who live and work in the East End and are keeping a close eye on Brockley as a place to buy.

It may not become Notting Hill (thank God) but it's definitely on the up.

Following Englands bucolic dream to a leafy haven in a village connected by broadband, has its downsides.

There is little to do. The local facilities are limited and you need a car or two to make up for the patchy or non-existent public transport. As a homeworker you can go stir crazy.

Areas like Brockley with its big houses and gardens are a good compromise - if it had more local facilities.

If this depression is dramatic as they say, the million languid city workers who daily brave the numbing tedium of the great tidal flow by rail and road to sit in offices, might see some changes in the way this city works.

Tumbleweeds rolling through the City, the lights permanently out at Canary Wharf. Celebrity chefs busking outside their cobwebbed premises. The tumult of trade ground to a dispirting halt.

Big business de-centralised, its workers spread across the urban area. Set free from the shackles of the commute and the pernicious politics of the office, their lives enriched and more balanced. Their work, home based or in a small workspace close by.Vital, vibrant communities thriving in the London Boroughs.

Of course, many of those curmudgeonly transport workers would lose their jobs, but I daresay this could be offset by openings in the street cleaning department.

Brockley in twenty years? I have lived her that amount of time already and has not changed that much.

"if Brockley is ever going to pull itself 'up' and be perceived as a more desireable place to live, it would have happened by now. We've just experienced one of the biggest booms ever..."

Yes but Brockley is not going to become Notting Hill overnight (thank god??). Notting Hill and Islington have become what they are now slowly and gradually not over the course of one quick Nu Lab led boom. If Brockley is to go anywhere it'll be a pretty slow process, a little here and a little there. It's not a foregone conclusion that if it hasn't happened by now it'll never happen. Why shouldn't it happen in 10-20 years?

Beautifully written 17:36. With me, it's a case of familiarity breeding contempt. Having seriously considered the move to the S Coast or deeper into Kent, and spending time kicking bricks, I invariably pick up on the parochial vibe of the dream destination and can't wait to get back here :-)

I chose Brockley for a number of reasons. Amongst those was the belief that here was an area that was extrememly close to central London, with a community vibe, with beautiful, relatively underpriced properties - and withing Zone 2.

Brockley, despite the financial hiccups, is on the 'up', and the forthcoming line will bring much interest this summer and beyond.

Property prices go up, and then go down, and then go up, and... watch this space.

Shoreditch is where students go to party in clubs and bars full of DJs, VJs and the purveyors of drugs that make you feel cool and want to hug strangers.

Shoreditch has seen many a massive debit land on a parental credit cards as self absorbed twenty somethings spend a year of living dangerously before they boomerang back to the homestead.

The ELL means you can take the tube there and, if you can stay awake, back on the first train the following morning. Thus solving the logistical nightmare that is a night out in Shoreditch.

Of course if New Cross becomes the Haight-Ashbury of London and Deptford becomes its East Village. Well, we may see the tide turning and North London types heading in this direction to lose a few brain cells of an evening.

This, apparently, is urban development and Lewisham Boroughs'Cunning Plan to improve Deptford.

No, I won't explain that because that's your assumption. In fact all sorts of people do drugs only that you like to pick on the Shoreditch clubbing crowds, not any other.Bankers are full of coke and doctors just help themselves in the cabinet. Apprentice plumbers insted do crack.But those are not your business, you don't like those others, the undesirables.

Before a BC civil war ensues, it may be appropriate to bring you back to the shutters issue. Many insurers will not insure a commercial property with a SE postcode without shutters, reducing choice and increasing premium. A broken window is often not the issue; it is etching of the glass, which you will find on most shop and bus windows in the area.

First, I didn't say that kids don't bring joy, I spoke of the period "before" having children because you and the anonymous you echoed sound just like two stiff chaps that never had fun that doesn't include kids as you lack any empathy for those that do.

I have a daughter myself and although she's lot of fun I almost haven't seen a gig or been at the cinema for three years now and can't wait to resume some degree of life beyond the fulfillment that parenthood gives. Anyway, since I had a full 15 years of adult life where I could enjoy myself without kids around I haven't got regrets really.

If you had been around town without kids you'd have seen that there are all sorts of people everywhere and they are up to all sorts of things too.People need to go out and meet and socialize, all of them, even the young and trendy.And how do they get a chance to have kids and start on the joys of parenthood themselves if they don't have places where they can meet and mate?

Some do drugs and many other don't, in fact I believe that most of them go clubbing to get laid. And as I already said I believe that people of all sorts do drugs and that picking on young and trendy is a generalization.

I can't think of one argument against a few more trendy twentysomthings in the local social mix and to finish, your proposition that the presence of clubs for trendy youths is an impediment to more housing for essential workers is a rather hazardous leap of logic that I'd love to see explained if you can.

Somehow I don't think many will stray beyond the pleasure dome that is New Cross and Deptford.

Brockley will remain the same: a place to snooze.

I like the idea of decorated shutters.

Some sort of design appropriate to each type of business. The design committee responsible for urban regeneration should look into it. If Peckham can have its little Victorian brass lamps on every shop in regenerated areas then Lewisham needs its own signature.

Going back to Shoreditch though, it has become a bit of destination. many of the clubs and bars that used to be in the West End have relocated due to high rent and unsympathetic attitudes from Westminster council. Some to areas like Vauxhall and others to Hoxton and Shoreditch.

Of course Brockley wasn't a million miles from Shoreditch before the ELL closed down - it was v easy to hop on a Tube from NC. I look forward to the new link to the clubs and bars over that way, as you say, linking the delights of Shoreditch with New Cross! Time Out mag was predicting that increasingly "cutting edge" clubs and bars would be found outside zone 1 and areas like Shoreditch, Hoxton or further north around Hackney are prime places - rents are cheaper and it's where the "kids" live.

Actually talking of Time Out, they interviewed someone - reader of the week or something - last issue. If memory serves, the woman lived in Honor Oak and mentioned the wonderful banoffee pie at Toads Mouth 2 as a great thing about the area. Slowly TO is becoming more aware of life beyond the Tube. Partly because they now have a writer who lives in Sydenham.

Headhunter, you're right of course about Shoreditch being a destination for bars etc and I'm certainly looking forward to hopping on that shiny new tube to get there quickly and easily.

However, I'm even more interested in attracting the people that currently work and live in Shoreditch and the surrounding area to Brockley. There are lots of arts and media companies around there and more moving in all the time. Despite the narrow-minded (and rather cliched) comments on here about 'cokeheads and trustafarians', these are staffed with young professionals earning fairly good incomes who'll presumably soon be wanting to settle down somewhere leafy and attractive but close to work.

I think it would be horrible if Brockley turned into Notting Hill or Islington!

I'm looking forward to the East London Line, but not in the hope that it will bring an influx of smug middle-class wankers. Simply because it will improve transport for people who already live in this area!

What M said. For 'middle class' read 'well remunerated'. Surprising how many right-on people are basically chippy about earning peanuts. Most of the BBC and broadsheet journalistic profession, for instance. And, it appears, quite a few Brockley inhabitants.

'Hey man, this is a creative neighbourhood. We don't want you pin-striped drones spoiling it.'

I don't think we need to worry one way or the other, once the ELL/Overground is in place, people (whoever they are and of whatever class) who spend time in Hoxton or Shoreditch will "discover" Brockley

I don't want an influx of smug people to the area who think they are doing us a favour just be being here.

The people are what makes an area and from my perception Brockley is doing alright, we have good people here, as evidenced by the various community groups; proactive people doing things for others. They may not be rich but they care about their area.

Slowly but surely our community is building through events and local activism. That community feeling is what makes an area desirable as much as property.

I'm not really interested in what class the new arrivals are (or how 'smug' - whatever that means), just in creative, interesting people and how we get them to move to Brockley.If they come the restaurants, bars and shops will follow and make this an even better, more vibrant place to live.

This blog is a great start but what other measures can be taken? We perhaps need a feature in Time Out or *prepares for onslaught of obvious mungbean gags* The Guardian.

That's the sweet part about this area, we get excited over delis as opposed to being blasé about them.

What some don't realise that many of those oh so desirable creative people are already here. They run or involved in Open Studios, the Max, Tea Leaf Arts? In my building there's two people that work for a national newspaper, thing is they are very busy.

I didn't say there weren't already creative people in Brockley - of course there are. I was trying to start a discussion about what I see as Brockley's low recognition factor and how we attract more people to move here and regenerate the area and how the ELL will help with that.

Why does Brockley 'need' this? It's quiet, pleasant, leafy, and there are plenty of nice enough people living here already, from a variety of backgrounds. If I want things to 'do' of an evening I'll go to New Cross, or Shoreditch, for that matter.

Sometimes I have to suspect that the eagerness of some individuals for the area to 'regenerate', or for new residents to move in, might just reflect their desire for the value of their house to go up, rather than any real interest on what will happen to the place as a whole. I mean,come on: what does it matter if your neighbour's an artist, a bus driver, or an actuary for that matter, as long as they say hello from time to time?

As I've said before, if anyone's really interested in seeing the area become anything other than a dormitory, they should listen to Jon S, who has made sensible statements on the importance of getting certain kinds of business (not delis, either) to relocate to Brockley. This isn't necessarily going to make the area any more 'creative' or 'vibrant', though, just more commercially active and better-developed.

Most 'creative' people seem to work in account mangement when you ask them, having studied marketing at Hull. I find City types far more rounded and interesting, notwithstanding that they don't wear skinny jeans half way down their arses to the office, at 35 years of age.

I have written plenty of times on here about the motivation for running the site, but the main one is that I thought something like BC should exist - to get the community talking and sharing news about the local area. There's lots happening but there was nothing online. In terms of promoting Brockley to the wider world, building an online presence was the central challenge in my view. As a result, journalists regularly lift stories and use the site for research. Anyway, as I say, there will hopefully be a very interesting development on this front in the next week or so...

Why do you feel Brockley needs promoting and to whom? It's a simple and logical question given the amount of work this site and promotion entails.What do you want Brockley to become? You have appear to have quite firm about tall buildings, the rest of us I'm sure would like to know where you are going with this?

I wanted to promote Brockley primarily to the people who live in it, to make them aware of what the area already offers and secondarily to people who don't live in Brockley, because like many of the people who live in Brockley I am immensely proud of where I live.

If your question is whether I am being paid, the answer is no. If it is whether I have any vested interests? Only as much as any resident in the area.

As to what I want for the area, that is the subject of many of the articles on here - if you read them, you will get a goodish sense of it. I want nicer, more active main streets, better parks and facilities for kids, pubs that are pleasant places to go for a pint and maybe even something to eat, community events which people support, shops that are open and which sell things that a wide range of people might like, a cash machine near Brockley station, Costcutter to copy Budgens' revamp, etc.

But of course, it's not just about what I want, it's what you want too, which is why this blog is so committed to encouraging debate.

I hate knee-jerk overreactions, lazy stereotypes and entrenched viewpoints that dominate much debate here and in all walks of life. The hyteria over tall buildins is just one of my many bugbears.

Anonymous, Brockley Nick is obviously some kind of machiavellian like evil genius.

1. Moves into low end area

2. Spends years running a blog about the area that encourages local residents to discuss local issues / interests

3. ????

4. $$ Profit $$

He's probably done this countless times in countless low end areas with countless blogs. Thank god someone has finally cottoned onto to his tricks and exposed him for the unscrupulous shyster he really is.

They encourage people to take an interest in their local area. Maybe take part in community activities, meet other people in the neighbourhood. If anyone is going to spend a few years living in this area, it is a good idea to get to know it.

Though some of the discussions seem rather trite and there are the usual windbags with their hobby horses; this is a good example of a community website and it has a lot of potential.

It records questions, opinions, debates and discussions at a level where anyone can say almost what they want about what is going on in the area.

The fortunes of areas like Brockley are hostage to the whims of government policy, landlords, business and the greater economy.

The more people discuss, gossip and know what is going on, the more empowered they feel. The more likely they will be to take action to improve the area or just know what services exist, what new shops have opened or closed.

In areas of London such as Brockley, there can be high levels of social isolation. There are few places where people come together.

This site, with its local stories, is like a parish magazine with dynamic letters column built in. A nice example of the use of the Internet for publishing.

I quite like the parochialism and the chatter about shops. It tends to discourage the types who just want to rave about the great issues of the day. There are plenty of other websites for that sort of thing.

However, I imagine it takes up a lot of someones time and, if it is to be anything more than a hobby, that time will have to be paid for at some point, if it is to have a long term future.

You can't make enough money to live on with a blog like this. We could carry local sponsorship but a) it would take a lot of work to cast around for sponsors b) many local businesses are either not aware of the site or not happy about anything with a whiff of criticism about them c) it would cannibalise advertising for existing outlets such as BrocSoc newsletter, d) it would not make much money anyway and e) it would cause me no end of grief from people accusing me of being a sell-out etc. Which is not to say that BC would never carry sponsorship under any circumstances just that money is not the motivator. And anyone with google ads will tell you how little they generate.

If, on the other hand, this site plays a small part in helping projects like the Talbot refurb get off the ground or keeping some of the local shops in business, then it will all be worth it in terms of quality of life...

Just think Kate - when we get a forum, people will be able to write their own news, start their own threads etc etc. - I'd imagine that would stimulate it a lot more than asking (which, by the way, you have been very polite and encouraging about!)